(no subject)
Forcing myself to write again. On some level the desire is still there, but something has sapped virtually all of my will to do so. (I suspect the job.) I have been trying to recount my last day of class/Manifest 2009 and my graduation in The Black Book, but this is taking far longer than I had anticipated. I had expected it to take no more than a few days at the very maximum to write, but it is stretching on now for several weeks. At the time, I was filled with such sadness that my college years were over as this essentially meant that I had failed and that my life was over. The classroom situation allowed me to meet new people (by the fact that we were all scheduled/obligated to show up at the same place at the same time for fifteen weeks). Instead of having a one-off introduction and failing to make an impression on them or to get an impression of them, I had the time to get to know people and vice-versa. This was a comfort to me because it gave me the luxury of the idea that I could possibly “meet someone,” but when the last day of class came around and that the full realization that in five years this had not really happened once, I knew that I had failed in my one true hope. My time had run out. This had not happened and would not happen. My life was, for all practical purposes, over.
But now, at the beginning of what-my third week after graduation?-all of those things seem impossibly distant. College is all covered by haze that I find difficult to penetrate. I have been at work for four days this season and already that is all there is. My brain is shutting down; I feel as though this is all there is. I’m having difficulty remembering that there even is anything else! This has left me in a constant state of stress and dread. After only four days of work I have a strong desire to be killed. My body aches and I can barely remember any of my yoga. I hated high school and have sworn up and down that I would rather die than go back, and yet, this is exactly where I am. Most of the guys in the Parks Department are all stuck in high school, no matter how old they are. Fortunately, I only really have to see them in action when I go to clock out Tuesdays through Fridays, but that is more than enough.
Training for speed skating was yesterday. This was the first Sunday session of the season, the training with Sam Polous in Northbrook. Not a very difficult training session (as the “first” it is designed not to be) but still a little tiring. Afterward, of all things, I went to hang out with Gertrude at North Avenue Beach. Earlier she had insisted that I go in the water “at least once” and I had made my mind to do so, but when I made my way over from the North & Clybourn subway station (caught the wrong North Ave bus-the one that terminated at Clark instead of going all the way to the beach) I found that the weather was a bit chillier than I had anticipated (training in Northbrook had, for a while, increased my perception of the temperature) and I decided not to take a dip. It turns out Gertrude had decided to refrain as well. We spent the entire time at the beach on towels in the sand talking about a limited number of things. I talk too much about nothing.
Eventually Gertrude decided that she was hungry and wanted to leave to get some food. (The food provided at “the boat” is overpriced.) I had mentioned something about Chinatown or Chinese food and it apparently got stuck in her head. She wanted ribs but neither of us knew any rib places within a reasonable distance in the city. She repeatedly mentioned some arts and crafts place in the Humboldt Park-Wicker Park-Logan Square area that apparently served food of some kind (hot dogs and hamburgers or something) but neither of us cared enough to make a decision as to where to go. We walked to Sedgwick to load some more money onto my transit card and since we were already in the station, decided to go to Chinatown since the other place would have required taking a bus.
Again, I say I talk too much about nothing. On a lot of the trip out and back I talked about the “L” as it was. Much of this-as she pointed out-I had told her already. In Chinatown, in the restaurant, I must have sounded like a slightly arrogant professor. Come to think of it, I probably sounded like that the whole time. Discussing the history of Streeterville, Logan Square, the Great Chicago Fire (and its relationship to Logan Square), the nature of the sand on Lake Michigan’s beaches, the history of the “L,” and tidbits of the unification of China. The world would probably be better off if I cut my vocal cords.
We parted in the subway so that my mother would not have to wait so long to pick me up. I had “hung out” with someone, but only found it mildly entertaining at best. Work still hung over me like a dark shadow, possibly putting a damper on my enjoyment of the situation but possibly not. Perhaps I am just not capable.
But now, at the beginning of what-my third week after graduation?-all of those things seem impossibly distant. College is all covered by haze that I find difficult to penetrate. I have been at work for four days this season and already that is all there is. My brain is shutting down; I feel as though this is all there is. I’m having difficulty remembering that there even is anything else! This has left me in a constant state of stress and dread. After only four days of work I have a strong desire to be killed. My body aches and I can barely remember any of my yoga. I hated high school and have sworn up and down that I would rather die than go back, and yet, this is exactly where I am. Most of the guys in the Parks Department are all stuck in high school, no matter how old they are. Fortunately, I only really have to see them in action when I go to clock out Tuesdays through Fridays, but that is more than enough.
Training for speed skating was yesterday. This was the first Sunday session of the season, the training with Sam Polous in Northbrook. Not a very difficult training session (as the “first” it is designed not to be) but still a little tiring. Afterward, of all things, I went to hang out with Gertrude at North Avenue Beach. Earlier she had insisted that I go in the water “at least once” and I had made my mind to do so, but when I made my way over from the North & Clybourn subway station (caught the wrong North Ave bus-the one that terminated at Clark instead of going all the way to the beach) I found that the weather was a bit chillier than I had anticipated (training in Northbrook had, for a while, increased my perception of the temperature) and I decided not to take a dip. It turns out Gertrude had decided to refrain as well. We spent the entire time at the beach on towels in the sand talking about a limited number of things. I talk too much about nothing.
Eventually Gertrude decided that she was hungry and wanted to leave to get some food. (The food provided at “the boat” is overpriced.) I had mentioned something about Chinatown or Chinese food and it apparently got stuck in her head. She wanted ribs but neither of us knew any rib places within a reasonable distance in the city. She repeatedly mentioned some arts and crafts place in the Humboldt Park-Wicker Park-Logan Square area that apparently served food of some kind (hot dogs and hamburgers or something) but neither of us cared enough to make a decision as to where to go. We walked to Sedgwick to load some more money onto my transit card and since we were already in the station, decided to go to Chinatown since the other place would have required taking a bus.
Again, I say I talk too much about nothing. On a lot of the trip out and back I talked about the “L” as it was. Much of this-as she pointed out-I had told her already. In Chinatown, in the restaurant, I must have sounded like a slightly arrogant professor. Come to think of it, I probably sounded like that the whole time. Discussing the history of Streeterville, Logan Square, the Great Chicago Fire (and its relationship to Logan Square), the nature of the sand on Lake Michigan’s beaches, the history of the “L,” and tidbits of the unification of China. The world would probably be better off if I cut my vocal cords.
We parted in the subway so that my mother would not have to wait so long to pick me up. I had “hung out” with someone, but only found it mildly entertaining at best. Work still hung over me like a dark shadow, possibly putting a damper on my enjoyment of the situation but possibly not. Perhaps I am just not capable.